I wanted to post in the cheese thread, but it's closed . I'mma make a new one!

I'm working at a cheese shop in MA, my boss is an ACA person who was one of the cheesemongers at the big shindig in CO over the summer. I've been there for a year, I was in automotive before that. The jump is amazing, and I have learned SO MUCH. Of course, there's still so much to learn.

Cato Corner's Hooligan is an amazing semisoft washed-rind cheese with a great body and a moderate amount of ammonia. I love it. Stinky cheeses make me happy. The only one to drive me off was a bufala taleggio. That thing was loving offensive.

I'm working at a cheese shop in SoCal. Did you get any of the Tarentaise Reserve? Lately I've been going after more of the alpines, but that Foxglove washed rind is pretty good. Also Dancing Fern from sequatchie cove.

I'm not too knowledgeable about cheese, but I am learning. My girlfriend used to work at a cheese place, so she's the one in the know. She brings home cheese and we munch it.

Big ol' favorites challerhocker, saporo del piave(?), midnight moon, 5 year gouda (I think there's a theme here.) I'm starting to love blue cheeses. Something I can't hang with is like epoisse. I couldn't get it close to my face. My post has no direction, but y'know, just post.

Can we talk about making cheese in here? I have 8 wheels aging now, all relatively young. The Cheshire and Raclette are the ones I'm most excited about. My Emmental cracked after pressing and had fun mold growing in the openings, so I am cutting those out and seeing how far it has spread internally. loving cheese with eyes that swells....

Can we talk about making cheese in here? I have 8 wheels aging now, all relatively young. The Cheshire and Raclette are the ones I'm most excited about. My Emmental cracked after pressing and had fun mold growing in the openings, so I am cutting those out and seeing how far it has spread internally. loving cheese with eyes that swells....

Please do!

I've been eating a whole bunch of Prairie Breeze from a local cheesemaker lately, and it's really good. Dry, slightly crumbly sharp white cheddar with a good saltiness to it. Goes great with venison summer sausage.

I recently opened my raclette, and unfortunately the red linens I was using seem to have died. It has a layer of white mold, like brie or camembert, but that is it. So it turned out to be a really nice flavor with a texture of a slightly more firm brie wheel (but it was 3 pounds). I'm going to make some smaller ones and let them age for different lengths of time with my new satchel of red linens bacteria.

Have any other cheese makers here used sodium citrate while making cheese to get it to have the meltiness of store bought? Just curious. When I have the time I am wanting to experiment with that a bit.

I've been eating a whole bunch of Prairie Breeze from a local cheesemaker lately, and it's really good. Dry, slightly crumbly sharp white cheddar with a good saltiness to it. Goes great with venison summer sausage.

Prairie Breeze is great. My parents demand I bring some every Thanksgiving.

I love cheese, but as a vegetarian rarely buy any of the more extravagant stuff since with rennet usage and labeling not always specifying enzymes as animal or microbial I'm always a bit hesitant. I've pretty much accepted the fact that if I'm eating out the cheese might not be strict vegetarian, but if I'm buying it for myself I always make sure. I know things like reggiano have to be made with rennet... any others?

I love cheese, but as a vegetarian rarely buy any of the more extravagant stuff since with rennet usage and labeling not always specifying enzymes as animal or microbial I'm always a bit hesitant. I've pretty much accepted the fact that if I'm eating out the cheese might not be strict vegetarian, but if I'm buying it for myself I always make sure. I know things like reggiano have to be made with rennet... any others?

Lots use rennet. I would recommend googling a cheese first and then buying if it is clearly marked with nettle or whatever alternative they've gone with. Up here in Ontario at least lots of places are clearly labeling their vegetarian cheeses since the demand is increasing, so that info is getting easier to find.

I'm working on a professional fromager designation, I'll be done with it in May. No big plans on what I want to do with it but I have been having people ask if I will help them build cheese boards for parties and offering to pay, so I may make a side business out of it, or do pairing nights at breweries, that kind of thing. About a month ago I rented out a local cheese shop for a birthday party, had them build us a bunch of boards and then had people buy their own drinks. Highly recommend it if your local cheese store happens to be licensed.

If we're talking favorites, I recently had a 3 year Comte that was the best Comte I've had in my life and I went back to the shop the next day and bought like 1/6 of the wheel

Oh poo poo new cheese thread. I made a basil gouda at a friend's request this past winter, turned out really good. I've been wanting to make Manchego (or similar) for a long time, maybe I'll finally do it.

Some camembert that I made last week is starting to grow its white mold and I feel like such a good cheee parent right now .

I made two camembert wheels last weekend, they're nice and fuzzy now. I love how pure white the fuzz is, it's so pretty. I let my last batch go about 6 weeks, which was a bit too long. I think I'll open one at 4 and the other at 5 this time.

Can we talk about making cheese in here? I have 8 wheels aging now, all relatively young. The Cheshire and Raclette are the ones I'm most excited about. My Emmental cracked after pressing and had fun mold growing in the openings, so I am cutting those out and seeing how far it has spread internally. loving cheese with eyes that swells....

Cheshire is one of my favorites to make, it softens nicely so it's good in omelettes or toasted sandwiches.

Looking good! I lost my job so buying 15 gallons of milk a week hasn't been a priority but making a Brie and camembert are on my list. Bel Pase as well. I've really been into Geotrichum Candidum cheeses lately, and wish I would have aged my Raclette a little longer. My ex and I have a deal where she will supply the milk where her seasonal money starts coming in if I turn it into cheese. So I may be using some of my free time to get back into this.

Also, making Brie is easy. You don't even need a press for that. Just a cheese mold, which can be made or bought for cheap, milk, rennet, and Penicillum Candidum culture. You probably should be adding calcium chloride to it as well, because it helps the milk coagulate, but I've made it without.

Your site was what got me started actually. I also found out there's a dairy farm about an hour from me that has decent prices and everything from raw milk to non homogenized pasteurized milk. I don't think I'm brave enough to do raw cheese since Listeria scares me a bit

I am just venturing into Goons With Spoons for the first time despite a decade+ of being on this dying comedy forum and I am unreasonably excited to find a cheese thread.

I'm an oddity though because I love me my simple cheeses a lot but when it comes to fancier cheeses I just dont get excited. I could eat sharp cheddar or mozzarella all day but if I see a fancy cheese I just shrug.

I made my first attempt at making cheese last week and made some Queijo Fresco(a Portuguese fresh cheese) but I was a coward and hardly ate any because I used raw milk.

Does anyone have any advice on this? The only local sources of "fresh" milk are sold at the local farmers market, and due to regulation sold as "pet food" under what I assume is a wink-nudge plausible deniability. Should I just deal with it, or is there some secret to finding "fresh" pasteurized milk in an urban environment(South Florida?)

As with any hobby, especially a hobby where you are spoiling food to a specific degree, I would STRONGLY recommend you do your first half a dozen or so batches of cheese with regular grocery store brand milk- nothing fancy, just cheap. Not because of any sort of microbial concern, but simply one of skill and experience. Your first few batches will (hopefully) be good, but in the grand scheme of things, they will still be off. A few degrees off on the milk cooking, a few degrees off on the aging, a few % humidity off and a cheese can go from luscious creamy brie to gritty, pasty, piquant disk of ammonia. Nothing hurts an early hobby more than going "gently caress, that cost me $50 to make and it smells like Mr. Clean".

Once you start being able to say "I am going to make a [insert cheese type here] and I know it is going to turn out the way I want." then start upgrading to nice, expensive milk. Only then will your skill be at the minimum level required to bring out the best of what the quality milk has to offer. I saw that a lot over in the Charcuterie thread, someone would make their first ever slab of bacon using $25/lb hand-raised belly and it would inevitably be of middling quality (only by virtue of lack of experience) and you could tell just how disenchanted they were with the whole process. Get your hands on the best stuff available once you know that you aren't going to be the weak point in the process.

Don't worry about raw milk. The danger level of it is exceedingly low, and even if it is a little bad, you're not going to wither up and die, you just might have loose bowels for a day or so.

As with any hobby, especially a hobby where you are spoiling food to a specific degree, I would STRONGLY recommend you do your first half a dozen or so batches of cheese with regular grocery store brand milk- nothing fancy, just cheap.

I respectfully disagree. The good milk sold in glass bottles at my store is only a couple bucks more per gallon than Kemps or whatever. Two gallons of high quality milk for me is about $16. I've also only ever had one batch go bad, and that was a challenging washed rind cheese which isn't really appropriate for the aging environment that I have. All of my other cheeses have turned out great, from my very first "farmer's cheese" (aka whatever came out of the cave after three months) to gouda to camembert and several things inbetween. Really, cheesemaking isn't so hard that your first batch should be anything less than delicious, even if it's a little non-standard.

Regular grocery store milk is often pasteurized at higher temperatures so it remains better over longer shipping distances, but this breaks down the proteins resulting in more waste whey and a lower yield. Higher quality milk will result in more, higher quality cheese. I think it's worth risking a few bucks, even at the start.

While I'm willing to believe that it can be tastier, and that it can be done safely if the farmer is careful and you know how to safely transport and handle raw milk, I just don't see the benefit as outweighing the risk for the average home cheesemaker. Your cheese shouldn't ever make you sick. Play it safe, get high quality, low temperature pasteurized milk.

Eh, I only recommend, albeit strongly, to start off using practice materials for the first few times before upgrading. Users should have a sense of their skill level with this sort of project and adjust according to their budget.

Thanks for the responses. I think in general circumstances are going to result in me using grocery store milk to at least practice on in the short term, as it doesn't seem like I have a lot of other good intermediate options.

Is there any specific recipes you guys would recommend for making something a little bit more complex then a white, fresh cheese? Or does getting into harder cheeses or age cheeses something I should wait a little longer on?

I think the 2 gallon batch of Gouda is a great beginner aged cheese. It's pretty easy, very forgiving, and can be aged for anywhere from 2-24 months. You can also experiment with adjuncts (spices, herbs, peppers, vegetables...) so it's good to make over and over again as you improve your technique.

If that doesn't strike your fancy, Colby and Cheshire are only a little bit more involved and turn out a sharper, fresher cheese, not far from Cheddar.

A new cheese thread! Wonderful! I compiled a lot of the recommendations from the last cheese thread into this article on the GWS wiki. It's mostly direct copy + pasted from whoever posted about a certain cheese. The title and intro paragraph are the result of me being a giant goon in 2010.

Sapore del Piave, which translates to "flavor of Piave," which I think is the non-DOP version of Piave, my favorite cheese.

Piave is so loving legit. I remember going to my cheesemonger once after trying it for the first time, but I couldn't remember the name. I was like, "It was a pretty firm, salty Italian cheese, and I think it was named after a river?" and he knew exactly what I was looking for. A good cheesemonger is a wonderful thing.

Thanks for posting the link- so many of the descriptions are hilarious, especially Tallegio.

Some goon posted:

Tallegio
This cheese is a polarizing one. It is a soft, viscous cheese that oozes very slowly after you've cut it. It's taste is rather mild and slightly fruity, but there is one caveat. Do not touch this cheese. Use a fork or a toothpick, ANYTHING but your hands. It will make them smell like straight rear end in a top hat. I'm not using hyperbole, that is EXACTLY what they will smell like. If you follow these simple rules, you are left with quite the tasty cheese!

I was at an artisan cheese festival last week and whoops, spent $120 on cheese. Now I have to throw a party to ensure it gets eaten. I also finished my 'Professional Fromager' certificate so I can be a big snob

I am just venturing into Goons With Spoons for the first time despite a decade+ of being on this dying comedy forum and I am unreasonably excited to find a cheese thread.

I'm an oddity though because I love me my simple cheeses a lot but when it comes to fancier cheeses I just dont get excited. I could eat sharp cheddar or mozzarella all day but if I see a fancy cheese I just shrug.

What do you define as fancy cheese, and what turns you off about it? Are you just intimidated by not knowing what you're looking at, or have you had bad experiences?

If you like sharp cheddar, have you tried edam? It's nice and sharp, has a really great depth of flavor, and is reasonably easy to find.

recently tried some Mimolette, one of those cheeses where they let a bunch of arachnids gnaw on it for while before finishing it. it's very good but it's the hardest cheese that I've ever personally encountered. I haven't been able to slice it properly with the meager tools I have in my home, just break off small bits until it looks like I have a pile of bright orange wood shavings. whatever, tastes great all the same.

Crosspost from the Smoking Meat thread. Whatís a good cheese to use to make steak butter for somebody that doesnít like blue cheese? The cookbook Iím using recommends roquefort, cabrales, cambozola, or gorgonzola, but I think all of those are varieties of blue cheese?

Crosspost from the Smoking Meat thread. Whatís a good cheese to use to make steak butter for somebody that doesnít like blue cheese? The cookbook Iím using recommends roquefort, cabrales, cambozola, or gorgonzola, but I think all of those are varieties of blue cheese?

I think blue cheeses work the best as a compound butter for steak, so if the person in question doesn't care for it, I'd recommend going with something other than cheese, like an herbed compound butter.

I think blue cheeses work the best as a compound butter for steak, so if the person in question doesn't care for it, I'd recommend going with something other than cheese, like an herbed compound butter.

This. Blue cheese works because it is super different, but complimentary. I can't think of any other cheeses that would be worth trying.

Anybody passing through Pullman, WA (why are you doing this??) should stop and pick up a can of WSU Cougar Gold cheddar. Get the original, in fact get two cans. Eat one now and stick the other in your fridge for as many years as you can. It's an inexpensive good cheese that gets wonderfully crystallized with age, and being packed in a can means storage is foolproof. I had a 10 year old can a few years back and it was wonderful.